“The content of this concert will be pretty much the same content of the concert I’ve been doing in different places around this country. The context is different. The context takes me back to 44 years ago when I was last here performing.

“Powerful emotions to deal with that haven’t been dealt with that are down there,” she continued, “but let’s see if I can work it out as this evening goes along.”

I wondered what kinds of emotions were pulling on the 67-year-old performer.

When she last played in Tuscaloosa — on April 3, 1964 — powerful emotions were sweeping the country.

The civil rights movement was in full throttle. Selma was a year away; Birmingham was a year behind. Student activists were planning for what would become known as “Freedom Summer” in Mississippi. It would be three months before President Lyndon Johnson signed a federal law making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin.

Baez had been in Alabama the year before. Disappointed at performing before segregated audiences, she’d made it a point to schedule her 1964 Tuscaloosa concert at Birthright Auditorium on the Stillman College campus to ensure there would be a racial mix.

It was a gutsy move — a potentially life-threatening one, given the time and place. On Aug. 4 of that year, the bodies of three civil-rights workers — two white and one black — who had been murdered by the Ku Klux Klan would be recovered by FBI agents from an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Miss., a little more than 90 miles west of here.

Blase reception

I was curious to know if the concert at Stillman had raised hackles under white hoods locally. At the time, a local rubber worker named Robert Shelton was Grand Wizard of the nation’s largest Klan group, headquartered in Tuscaloosa.

But any emotional intensity surrounding her Stillman appearance stayed beneath the surface. The Tuscaloosa News carried a small announcement of the concert in its April 2 edition. With the exception of a small, perhaps telling phrase — “Provisions have been made to handle the large crowd that is expected” — the announcement is pure mayonnaise.

The day after she sang, the newspaper published a review by Fred Goossen, who served for years as its music critic. It focused more on the concert’s musical aspects than its social ones.

Calling her “[y]outhful, untutored, unglamourous,” Goossen wrote that Baez nevertheless “exudes a powerful appeal that reaches across the footlights and captures her audience.”

He offered the observations of someone who understands sopranos in terms of Sutherland and Sills. “She has an above-average voice,” Goossen wrote of Baez, “particularly in the curious realm of folk-singing, where technical skill of a conventional kind is looked upon with ill-concealed contempt.”

She was best, he said, on folk songs “of a plaintive nature — virile and optimistic songs do not suit her waif-like demeanor.”

I smiled and closed my eyes, thinking of Baez’s gorgeous recording of “Silver Dagger,” which my older sister played endlessly on our family phonograph. The song’s dark beauty seemed to match Baez’s raven hair and her gypsy eyes.

“Joan Baez is a kind of musical J.D. Salinger,” Goossen wrote. “She is a bard of one segment of the younger generation. In that role, she is convincing and appealing.”

Different times

But all that was long, long ago. It’s like Baez once sang (and reprised, hauntingly, at the Bama): “We both know what memories can bring/They bring diamonds and rust.”

As the optimism of the early ’60s corroded into the cynicism of Nixon and Watergate, blacks got benign neglect at home; the war abroad came crashing to an ugly, ignoble end.

“You wake up in the morning,” Baez told Boston Globe writer Joan Anderman, “and the path is not defined for you by the fact of that war.”

Married and divorced, mother of a neglected son, Baez ultimately lost her way. By the late 1980s, she was, in her words, “a nervous wreck,” heavily dependent on therapy.

The slow cancer death of her sister, Mimi, in 2001 jarred Baez into a slow healing process and an eventual return to performing. Emerging into a new millennium, she found some familiar wars to fight.

“If George Bush has done one thing for me, he’s the best publicity agent I ever had,” she told her audience at the Bama on April 11. “People are so desperate to get away from him that they come to my concerts.”

There was more than politics that night. She brought a sense of place and time; of humor and peace.

“OK,” Baez was saying, “this is a song from down South ... a song I learned from Johnny Cash when I was very young. He was very, very, very cute. He was with his first wife. Which is how he introduced her.”

Then she sang “Long Black Veil,” from 1959. I remembered hearing it as a teen-ager on the jukebox at the DQ in Selma. But singing it drew more than memories from of Baez.

“There is something about the way the South smells at night,” she said when she finished, “and it sort of made me cover-songish.

“Like last night. I’m generally cooped up in hotels, you know? So I went out to the bus to get something and on the way back, I heard this tree rustling.

“And I sat under the trees and drank a little water. And I looked longingly around to see if there were any paths and there weren’t. So I sort of made one.

“And it was through grass and clover — and something about it tends to ground you, you know, till you almost become that earth. And forget about that hotel room for a little while.”

She shrugged a little.

“At any rate, it was a very sweet, sweet feeling. And there’s no particular point to that story.”

I laughed with the rest of the audience . But I found myself genuinely moved.

Depth of feeling

Baez marched with Martin Luther King in Mississippi. She sang Christmas songs to Vietnamese children as U.S. planes bombed Hanoi. She walked in the “killing fields” of Cambodia, worked with the Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina and collaborated with Lech Walesa in Poland.

And here in Tuscaloosa, Baez, who has led such an extraordinary life, was reaching deep into her hidden places, summoning up intense emotions.

They came through, powerfully. Before it was over, she had us in the palm of her hand.

She sang songs as pointed and potent as Steve Earle’s “Christmas in Washington” (“To listen to the radio/You’d think that all was well/But you and me and most folks know/It’s going straight to hell”) and as off-the-wall as Sam Cooke’s “Wonderful World.” The audience loved it all.

Particularly strong were the lush “Rose of Sharon” by Eliza Gilkyson and a shimmering, transcendent “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” sung a capella, which I believe she performed with the Stillman Choir in 1964.

“She’s one of the great interpreters of songs alive on the planet,” says Earle, who is producing her new album, tentatively titled “Day After Tomorrow” and scheduled for release this fall.

As an encore, Baez led the Bama audience in John Lennon’s utopian ballad, “Imagine.”

We had seen her in the fall of 2006 in Birmingham. She closed her appearance there with a version of “Amazing Grace” that seemed to fill the house with God.

“Her concerts are so ...” I fumbled for a word “ ... uplifting,” I told my wife as we walked out of the Bama into streets drenched by rain.

And yes, the Southern night did have a particularly sweet smell.

Editorial Editor Ben Windham may be reached at 205-722-0193 or by e-mail at ben.windham@tuscaloosanews.com.

<p>This is a special concert, Joan Baez told the packed house at the Bama Theater two Fridays ago.</p><p>The content of this concert will be pretty much the same content of the concert I’ve been doing in different places around this country. The context is different. The context takes me back to 44 years ago when I was last here performing.</p><p>Powerful emotions to deal with that haven’t been dealt with that are down there, she continued, but let’s see if I can work it out as this evening goes along.</p><p>I wondered what kinds of emotions were pulling on the 67-year-old performer. </p><p>When she last played in Tuscaloosa  on April 3, 1964  powerful emotions were sweeping the country.</p><p>The civil rights movement was in full throttle. Selma was a year away; Birmingham was a year behind. Student activists were planning for what would become known as Freedom Summer in Mississippi. It would be three months before President Lyndon Johnson signed a federal law making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin.</p><p>Baez had been in Alabama the year before. Disappointed at performing before segregated audiences, she’d made it a point to schedule her 1964 Tuscaloosa concert at Birthright Auditorium on the Stillman College campus to ensure there would be a racial mix.</p><p>It was a gutsy move  a potentially life-threatening one, given the time and place. On Aug. 4 of that year, the bodies of three civil-rights workers  two white and one black  who had been murdered by the Ku Klux Klan would be recovered by FBI agents from an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Miss., a little more than 90 miles west of here.</p><p>Blase reception</p><p>I was curious to know if the concert at Stillman had raised hackles under white hoods locally. At the time, a local rubber worker named Robert Shelton was Grand Wizard of the nation’s largest Klan group, headquartered in Tuscaloosa.</p><p>But any emotional intensity surrounding her Stillman appearance stayed beneath the surface. The Tuscaloosa News carried a small announcement of the concert in its April 2 edition. With the exception of a small, perhaps telling phrase  Provisions have been made to handle the large crowd that is expected  the announcement is pure mayonnaise.</p><p>The day after she sang, the newspaper published a review by Fred Goossen, who served for years as its music critic. It focused more on the concert’s musical aspects than its social ones.</p><p>Calling her [y]outhful, untutored, unglamourous, Goossen wrote that Baez nevertheless exudes a powerful appeal that reaches across the footlights and captures her audience.</p><p>He offered the observations of someone who understands sopranos in terms of Sutherland and Sills. She has an above-average voice, Goossen wrote of Baez, particularly in the curious realm of folk-singing, where technical skill of a conventional kind is looked upon with ill-concealed contempt.</p><p>She was best, he said, on folk songs of a plaintive nature  virile and optimistic songs do not suit her waif-like demeanor.</p><p>I smiled and closed my eyes, thinking of Baez’s gorgeous recording of Silver Dagger, which my older sister played endlessly on our family phonograph. The song’s dark beauty seemed to match Baez’s raven hair and her gypsy eyes.</p><p>Joan Baez is a kind of musical J.D. Salinger, Goossen wrote. She is a bard of one segment of the younger generation. In that role, she is convincing and appealing.</p><p>Different times</p><p>But all that was long, long ago. It’s like Baez once sang (and reprised, hauntingly, at the Bama): We both know what memories can bring/They bring diamonds and rust.</p><p>As the optimism of the early ’60s corroded into the cynicism of Nixon and Watergate, blacks got benign neglect at home; the war abroad came crashing to an ugly, ignoble end.</p><p>You wake up in the morning, Baez told Boston Globe writer Joan Anderman, and the path is not defined for you by the fact of that war.</p><p>Married and divorced, mother of a neglected son, Baez ultimately lost her way. By the late 1980s, she was, in her words, a nervous wreck, heavily dependent on therapy.</p><p>The slow cancer death of her sister, Mimi, in 2001 jarred Baez into a slow healing process and an eventual return to performing. Emerging into a new millennium, she found some familiar wars to fight.</p><p>If George Bush has done one thing for me, he’s the best publicity agent I ever had, she told her audience at the Bama on April 11. People are so desperate to get away from him that they come to my concerts.</p><p>There was more than politics that night. She brought a sense of place and time; of humor and peace.</p><p>OK, Baez was saying, this is a song from down South ... a song I learned from Johnny Cash when I was very young. He was very, very, very cute. He was with his first wife. Which is how he introduced her.</p><p>Then she sang Long Black Veil, from 1959. I remembered hearing it as a teen-ager on the jukebox at the DQ in Selma. But singing it drew more than memories from of Baez. </p><p>There is something about the way the South smells at night, she said when she finished, and it sort of made me cover-songish. </p><p>Like last night. I’m generally cooped up in hotels, you know? So I went out to the bus to get something and on the way back, I heard this tree rustling.</p><p>And I sat under the trees and drank a little water. And I looked longingly around to see if there were any paths and there weren’t. So I sort of made one.</p><p>And it was through grass and clover  and something about it tends to ground you, you know, till you almost become that earth. And forget about that hotel room for a little while.</p><p>She shrugged a little.</p><p>At any rate, it was a very sweet, sweet feeling. And there’s no particular point to that story.</p><p>I laughed with the rest of the audience . But I found myself genuinely moved. </p><p>Depth of feeling</p><p>Baez marched with Martin Luther King in Mississippi. She sang Christmas songs to Vietnamese children as U.S. planes bombed Hanoi. She walked in the killing fields of Cambodia, worked with the Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina and collaborated with Lech Walesa in Poland.</p><p>And here in Tuscaloosa, Baez, who has led such an extraordinary life, was reaching deep into her hidden places, summoning up intense emotions.</p><p>They came through, powerfully. Before it was over, she had us in the palm of her hand.</p><p>She sang songs as pointed and potent as Steve Earle’s Christmas in Washington (To listen to the radio/You’d think that all was well/But you and me and most folks know/It’s going straight to hell) and as off-the-wall as Sam Cooke’s Wonderful World. The audience loved it all.</p><p>Particularly strong were the lush Rose of Sharon by Eliza Gilkyson and a shimmering, transcendent Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, sung a capella, which I believe she performed with the Stillman Choir in 1964. </p><p>She’s one of the great interpreters of songs alive on the planet, says Earle, who is producing her new album, tentatively titled Day After Tomorrow and scheduled for release this fall.</p><p>As an encore, Baez led the Bama audience in John Lennon’s utopian ballad, Imagine. </p><p>We had seen her in the fall of 2006 in Birmingham. She closed her appearance there with a version of Amazing Grace that seemed to fill the house with God.</p><p>Her concerts are so ... I fumbled for a word  ... uplifting, I told my wife as we walked out of the Bama into streets drenched by rain. </p><p>And yes, the Southern night did have a particularly sweet smell.</p><p>Editorial Editor Ben Windham may be reached at 205-722-0193 or by e-mail at ben.windham@tuscaloosanews.com.</p>